First Time Breeders!!

[kas1975]

Hello Everyone!!!

We just recently put our two babies together...(to us they're still babies, the female is 3yrs young and the male 4)...after hibernation. They shed, had their feeding and then we introduced them to eachother. Their reaction was fun to watch. They kind of did this "bobbing head dance" and twitched around a little, almost imediately playing the "chase the tail" game! The female wasn't agressive at all towards the male although she is playing hard to get. We've never bred before and I would like to get all the advice you guys can give me. I've been reading books and articles, however, I find on hand experience by you much more useful! I've been reading alot in your forum and I'm quite excited to be a new member!
Richard and Kevin and several others have held pretty interesting conversations I've learned alot from!

My question to you is....now that they have been together a couple of days, how can I tell if they've been naughty or not? We're not home during the day to watch! How long should I keep them together before seperating them again? Our female is pretty spoiled, she's used to being held once a day and she loves to curl up around the wrist and sleeps in the hood of my sweater, will her attitude change? We will have to prepare her cage for the arrival of her eggs....I would like to get some advice on that too, although I have read alot about it already! Any starter advice would be greatly apreciated!!!!

Thanks a bunch!

 

[Iris]

Hm..well I don't know about most of the other questions because I have no personal experience with breeding, but if you hunt around in the substrate, you can see dried semen and blood. To make it easier to tell, you might want to temporarily replace the substrate with newspapers or paper towels.

 

[nova]

question

would it be possible to adopt one of your hatchlings if they produce offspring

 

[Serpwidgets]

You won't always find blood. I've never seen it with about 25 instances of breeding.

I put mine in a special breeding house (a large tupperware shoebox-type thing) with a t-shirt or towel in it. When they are done, you can find what looks like clearish-whitish booger.

I find it easier to track what's going on if I keep them separated except when I specifically put them together to breed. When the female is ready they'll usually be done within 30-60 minutes.

For the female, you should put a nesting box in. I do this when the female starts to show signs of going into her next shed after breeding.

You may notice the female getting bigger. Then getting smaller... I was freaked out with this, thinking that my females were reabsorbing all their eggs, but mine all do this. They then get bigger around or just after "prenatal" shedding time and then lay their eggs.

Your female may become a little jumpy about being touched. I don't handle mine very much once I've put in their nestbox. By this time, they're pretty swollen with eggs, and I'm worried I might hurt her or any of the eggs by handling. I'm probably just paranoid about that. But the other reason for not much handling is that they tend to spend 100% of their time in the nestbox and I want them to get the idea that the nestbox is totally secure and free from intrusions.

Good luck!